The Art Workers Council Frankfurt/M (AWC) spoke with the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Freie Arbeiter und Arbeiterinnen-Union (FAU, Free Workers Union) Frankfurt/M about the crisis, the German Model conditions, organisation in the cultural sector, and about the mobilisation for the European day of action M31 on March 31, 2012.

In Peter Watkins film La Commune (Paris, 1871) more than 200 actors
interpret characters of the Commune on a stage-like set, with particular
focus on the Popincourt neighborhood in the XIth arrondissement. They
voice their own thoughts and feelings concerning the social and
political reforms. A journalist for Versailles Television broadcasts a
soothing and official view of events while a Commune television is set
up to provide the perspectives of the Paris rebels.

The film, a 5 hour 45 minute event will be presented by the group Rebond
pour la Commune. The cast later decided to form this association to
further a discussion on key elements in the film and its production
process. For this presentation of the film, the Rebond will be comprised
of the casting director Patrick Watkins and three of the films’
non-actor participants.

There will be intermittent breaks throughout the day with refreshments.

A project by Free Class FFM members Timothy Furey, Erik Lavesson, Siw Umsonst and Jeronimo Voss, presented during the opening of the new residence of »Faites votre jeu!« on 1st of July 2009

Adresse: Klapperfeldgasse 5, Frankfurt am Main – near Konstablerwache

The Next Real Estate Show is a follow-up presentation of the Free Class project The Real Estate Show which took place at the old residence of »Faites votre jeu!« in the Varrentrappstr. 38, Frankfurt am Main, Bockenheim, January 2009. (http://therealestateshow.blogspot.com)

Big art sponsors shorten their budgets or melt into air, such as the investment bank Lehman Brothers which also co-financed the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main. At the same time the “cultural nation” Germany will profit from art as a local investment, especially in times of economic crisis. The abundance of exhibitions adressing the topic of Germany within the last years[1] show how curatorial concepts can turn art, which even takes a decidedly critical stance against Germany, into a very personal and subjective commitment towards the national state. Max Klebb described these developments aptly as “the critical rebirth of nationalism as culture.”[2] In this way individualized imperatives of artistic production are turned into a subjectivist nationalism which boasts the claim to harbor and utilize limitless dimensions of differences.
The present form of an increasingly visible crisis development within capitalist economy demands a more realistic view on things. In place of the neoliberal euphoria of deregulated markets steps the similarly neoliberal conflict between globalization and national protectionism. But still there is a governmental consensus about taking the economic crisis as an occasion to finally moralize capitalism. The fact that this isn’t primarily meant to flatter NGOs and alter-globalization movements like Attac was made clear by german chancellor Angela Merkel in her new-years speech in 2009: “The crisis reveals the common spirit. Now this common spirit can help us in every situation. (…) We, the Germans, already mastered very different challenges, in the following year we will remeber them.”[3] Shortly after, crisis ridden workers in Great Britain were motivated by a similar sense of national community. They reminded their Labour government of its long made promises by means of a wildcat strike demanding “British Jobs for British Workers”. Here the other side of such “common spirit” of culturalized nationalism becomes clear. Namely the fact that its ideal of affirming differences is based on precarious conditions of bourgeois political economy. As long as the capitalist factory runs well every working worker is welcome at least until the next crisis argument provides the legitimation to reorganize the inventory of Human Resources on a national level.
This present situation illustrates the urgency for a critique of nationalism. So for us as artists the question arises how a cultural nationalism can be confronted in the field of visual arts. Therefore we attempt to discuss realist potentials in art beyond the mere idealization of neoliberal subjectivisms from self-entrepreneurship to “Du-bist-Deutschland” (You-are-Germany[4]). The cultural revitalization of a nationalist romanticism calls for the actualization of realism – a realist stance in art confronting these contemporary forms of national naturalization. But still, it seems that art has more in common with police than with politics. The romantic idea of the artist continues to serve as a tool for subjectivist normalisation. However, the producer of art is still a subject of the enlightenment and as such capable of solidarity and collectivity without the abandonment of identity. Realism as artistic solidarity in opposition to new cultural strategies of nationalism is what we want to address. This is not achieved in the mere reenactment of the historical framework of the debates on realism in visual arts since the beginning of the 19th century. Realism must continously be redeveloped concerning its specific relation to respective historical conditions of crisis.

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[1] such as “Made in Germany”, Hannover 2007 or “Vertrautes Terrain”, ZKM Karlsruhe 2008. And in 2009 celebrating the 60th aniversary of Germany: “Flagge zeigen?”, Haus der Geschichte Bonn as well as “SIXTY YEARS. SIXTY WORKS.”, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. And on April 25, 2009 the contemporary art exhibition “2000 Years Varus Battle. COLOSSAL – Art Fact Fiction” (curated by former documenta boss Jan Hoet) celebrates the 2000th aniversary of the founding myth of german identity – the Varus battle in the Teuteburger forest in the Osnabrücker Land. Under the topic “Deutschland 2009” the Kulturstiftung des Bundes sponsors a range of projects in different art fields such as the theatre project „60 Years in Germany – Warming up to an Uncomfortable Identity“ or the exhibition “Art of Two Germanys / Cold War Cultures” in the Germanische Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg and in the DHM Berlin. Also in cinema the national birthday is celebrated with “Deutschland 09 – 13 kurze Filme zur Lage der Nation” in collaboration with some of the most well known german star-directors.

[2] Max Klebb in “Die Absage an die Nation Kollektivieren”, invitation call for a conference on art and (anti)natioanlism in Berlin, February 2009.

An exhibition organized by art students from HfBK Städelschule and HFG Offenbach in the center for art and culture of the initiative Faites votre jeu!

Varrentrappstr. 38, Frankfurt am Main/Germany

Opening 09.01.2009, 19:00

Exhibition dates: 10.01.2009 to 31.01.2009, Tuesdays 19:00 to 22:00, Wednesdays 19:00 to 22:00 as well as in coordination with the info-line 0160-95656439

In The Real Estate Show the artist group Free Class FFM presents works of students from art academies HFG Offenbach and HfBK Städelschule. The exhibition specifically relates to the precarious status of the exhibition space in Varrentrappstr. 38. The collaborative installation of artistic and non-artistic interventions in the space of the self-organized artistic and cultural center of the initiative Faites votre jeu! are positioned as a manifestation of artistic solidarity.

On the 2nd of August a former youth center in Varrentrappstr. 38 which was empty and unused for 7 years was revitalized as a self-organized artistic and cultural center by the initiative Faites votre jeu!. Since the reclamation of this building, Faites votre jeu!, as an association of artistic and political interest groups, organizes a practical reply to the social restrictions of urban space in Frankfurt am Main.

We, the artists of The Real Estate Show, declare our solidarity with these measures taken. For many years one can observe the systematic limitation and destruction of self-determined options and prospects in this city. This also concerns a great deal of artists who can’t afford basic preconditions of work in Frankfurt am Main, such as studios, workshops and other spaces of production. In this situation the initiative Faites votre Jeu! has managed to organize the preconditions for experimental art production by allocating studios and spaces for exhibitions and other events. This is why so many representatives of art institutions in Frankfurt am Main expressed their solidarity: e.g. Judith Hopf (Professor for Visual Arts at the HfBK Städelschule), Prof. Dr. Norbert Abels (Scenario Editor at the Opera in Frankfurt am Main), Max Weinberg (internationaly known artist, since 50 years working in Frankfurt am Main), Michael Krebber (Professor and officiating Principal of the HfBK Städelschule), Tobi Maier (Curator at the Frankfurter Kunstverein until October 2008), the studentrepresentatives of the HfBK Städelschule, the ASTA of the HFG Offenbach, as well as the many artists that already used and will use the spaces in Varrentrappstr. 38, … – All of them expressed their solidarity with the initiative. Faites votre jeu! creates an important signal for this city. The city administration should welcome this proactive initiative with respect and not with criminal complaints or threats to clear the building with police force.

The Real Estate Show will open on the 9th of Januar at 19:00 with regular opening times untill the 31st of January. The entrance is free of charge. The timing of the exhibition could be understood as a reaction to the call to clear the building already on the 15th of January expressed by the responsible representative of the city administration, Jutta Ebberling, head of the communal department for education. We don’t believe that the city government of Frankfurt am Main can afford the public consequences of such policed escallation of violence connected to the clearence of this building. Instead we sincerely invite Jutta Eberling to stop the proceeding criminalization of Faites votre jeu! and to take the opening of The Real Estate Show as an opportunity to get a picture of the enormous success of this initiative.

For the 10 reasons to be a member space of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, the Realism Working Group of the Free Class Frankfurt/M has produced a body of works dedicated to the relationship between art and reality production. Departing from the assumption that our present reality is not based on the forces of nature, but instead on the forces of a diffuse police order of constructed ‘practical constraints’ the group searches for artistic methods that highlight the changeability of the present.

Besides the design of an exhibition the group also produced a bi-lingual (english/german) newspaper dedicated to the actuality of the term “Realism”, while at the same time discussing the significance of collaborative strategies. Furthermore, the project includes a film and discussion programme.

Ever since bourgeois hegemony the conditions of production within the institution of Art claim a special position. Artists own their means of production – they decide on its methods as well as on its contents. Thus, artists are free from the standards of the creation of wage labour based surplus value. Thereby, artistic production always appears also as a refusal of wage labour. This possible connection to a communist criticism of capitalist labour conditions seems very contradictory though, today more than ever.

So what are the present conditions of the politicisation of art? To date, individual freedom and autonomy still decisively structure the ethics of artistic production. These ethics refer not only to central ideals of bourgeois enlightenment but also to an emancipatory movement of the 1960s and 1970s and its means of escape from fordist economy. In the context of those social uprisings desires for independence and self-determination nurtured the attractivity of the rejection of fordist wage labour. In the course of postfordist developments these demands seemingly turned into legitimating rhetorics for flexible and unsolidary conditions of work. Under present conditions one could state that characteristics of bourgeois art appear as a stereotype for the wage labour economy in general, without giving prospects for the emancipation from capitalism. Instead, the dictation of “self-managment” forces producers to gain more individual responsibility over production in order to dedicate to it more intensively, creatively and flexibly, coping with its risks and inconveniences by oneself.

Beyond a capitulation that assigns contemporary art nothing but structural affirmation of bourgeois society, we want to discuss indicated contradictions as a strategic potential for politicisation. This examination on terms and prospects of artistic practice will be based on investigations on the past and presence of art and communism.

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Lecturers and their topics:

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Kerstin Stakemeier:

“Revolution out of Art – Productivism and Polytechnics”

Kerstin Stakemeier publishes in journals, catalogues and daily Press on relations between art and politics. Together with Nina Köller she currently curates the exhibition-project “Space of Actualisation Hamburg”. She teaches at Bauhaus University in Weimar.

In her contribution to the discussion event on Art and Communism she will focus on productivist art, in order to investigate on the figure of the polytechnical producer in the context of the russian revolution of the 1920s as well as in the presence.

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Katja Diefenbach:

“Politics of Bohemia – On the Difference between Distinguished Subjectivity and Whatever Singularity”

Katja Diefenbach is an author, teacher and cofounder of the bookstore-collective B_Books Berlin. She publishes on topics of poststructuralism and movementpolitics. Currently she teaches at the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht.

In her lecture she will give a short historical genealogy to depict the conceptions of a politics of bohemia and creative activity in order to formulate a critique of both, the unification of art and life and the idea of a sensual fulfillment of the human being by aesthetic activity. Point of departure is the reemergence of the notion of bohemia in the 1990s political art scene in Germany.

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Dmitry Vilensky (‘Chto delat?’):

“Temporary Art Soviet”

Founded in early 2003 in Petersburg, the platform Chto delat?/What is to be done? is a space between theory, art, and political activism. The platform’s work is coordinated by a workgroup of the same name: its members include artists, critics, philosophers, and writers from Petersburg, Moscow, and Nizhny Novgorod. ‘Chto delat?’ hopes to spark a dialogue of different positions about the politicization of knowledge production and about the place of art and poetics in this process, triggering collaborative initiatives in the form of “temporary art soviets” which are involved in the making of different cultural projects.